InterTradeIreland launched the Innovation Connections Programme today in the offices of the European Commission. John Fitzgerald, Vice Chairman of ITI and chairman of the National Transport Authority introduced the speakers – Minister Billy Kelleher (Trade and Commerce), Chris Horn (chairman of Engineers Ireland, founder of Iona Technologies and member of the Innovation Task Force), Sadhbh McCarthy (Centre for Irish and European Security), and, of course, myself from INNOVATOR.

The presentations kicked off at, starting with Minister Billy Kelleher. He was very enthusiastic about the whole area of Demand Led Innovation and said that the government will need to really start focusing on helping SMEs to grow their businesses through innovation, which is not all about R&D and Large Enterprises.  Chris Horn spoke about current Innovation initiatives in Ireland, including his own work through the innovation task force.  He spoke of the importance of innovating for the short term so that SMEs achieve results in 2010 and he acknowledged that Demand Led Innovation was certainly a great way to achieve this.

The launch took the form of an open forum where attendee’s were given the opportunity to ask questions to the panel. It was great to hear such positive feedback about the area of Demand Led Innovation, which is quite a new concept in Ireland (as user-centered design expert, Toby Scott, rightly pointed out). A great introduction to a programme which “innovates innovation” (or so says Aidan Gough, Strategy & Policy Director) – let there be many more!